Dubbed the Fire TV, this box promises to be one of Amazon's more powerful gadgets. It's going to be running Android on a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon CPU with 2GB RAM, Bluetooth, 8GB internal storage, and dual-antenna wifi. It's going to support 1080p video and Dolby digital surround stereo.

And it is reportedly so thin that it could qualify as a set under box. "Fire TV has three times the power and performance of Apple TV, of Roku 3, and of Chromecast," said Peter Larsen, VP at Amazon. "It is thinner than a dime. It fits underneath your TV, behind your TV. It fades seamlessly into the background."

I'm still looking for exact dimensions, but from the images available (via Mashable) I think he is exaggerating a lot. It's not thinner than a dime; but it is less tall than a dime's diameter. Note the USB, ethernet, and HDMI ports:

I don't have a list of all of the compatible apps, but the names being bandied about so far include Netflix, iheartradio, Showtime, Hulu, MLB, Crackle, NBA, YouTube, TED, Disney, ESPN, and more. There's also a report that a Plex app leaked in advance of the launch.

If that's the Fire Tv in his hand then I was right ti estimate the size at four inches square:

And here's the best feature (from Read Write): "This isn't a closed ecosystem," Larsen said. "It has a ton of content. But how do you find this content? This is what you do on Fire TV: (speaks) 'John Malkovich.' You can now see all of the movies John Malkovich is in, and easily add any of them to my Watch List. There's a microphone integrated into the remote control so I don't need to yell across my living room."

The Fire TV is going to ship with video, but starting next month it will also have support for music apps. It will also ship with support for Kindle Freetime and X-Ray.

more details to come

Update: This is also going to be a gaming box, just like I expected on Friday. That controller which showed up at the FCC is going to be available as an optional accessory. Amazon is now saying that by next month the Fire TV will have thousands of games for customers to play. They'll be able to play with the gaming controller or with the Fire TV's remote (it's a Wiimote-like controller). There's also a mention of installing an app on their smartphone or tablet so it can be used as a controller as well.

We wanted to build a streaming media device that allowed customers to play a variety of games at affordable prices,” the head of Amazon Games Studios announced on Wednesday.

Check These Out!

Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader:"I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."

Gaming is not at all a focus here, it’s a 1 year old phone SoC running Android games, you can do better with a new phone connected to a TV and a controller. Gaming for now is an afterthough, maybe they do more in the next generations… Would have been more exciting for gaming if they had Tegra K1 since it supports desktop class features, or if they had a cloud gaming service launching. It’s just a me too box and a simplified Google TV.

One of the key differentiators of the service — if I am reading the background correctly — is that recommendations flow across services. So, unlike Roku, where you start Netflix or start Hulu Plus or start Plex … and then sit inside each services world … Fire TV is able to find recos and build watch lists across all the services you have enabled.

Microsoft too. Problem is FireTV + Controller = $140 and XBOX360 4GB = $179. The Xbox is a whole different league for gaming and streaming since it supports local streaming off attached storage and off home mdia servers. (The FireTV may or not stream off local drives via USB but there is no mention of DLNA support in the specs.) And if you hunt around, you can find bundles with a couple games that make up the price difference.

For internet streaming only users, the $50 Roku seems way better–for streaming + gaming Xbox is easily worth the extra cost. Amazon pricing matches the top Roku and Apple list, but Roku can be found at a discount.

It’s a tweener. Unless they add value with updates its got a very narrow market.

No compelling reason to spend $99 to replace our perfectly good Roku, that does all the same stuff, except for the voice commands.

And when it talks about games, it means the apps in the Appstore, not full-blown video games. We don’t use the games that we have on Roku anyway.

Oh, and their comparison chart says that Roku doesn’t have Pandora, yes it does.

If Amazon wanted this to be successful, they should have come out with it when they created Prime. For a lot of people, there was no way to watch it on TVs so Roku became very popular for just that reason. Amazon is a day late and a dollar short on this one.

Kinda predictable, and no real compelling ‘killer app’ or reason to buy if you already have Prime & a way to send it to your TV (Roku/Apple TV/PC w/HDMI). I think the big potential is if this becomes a standard item with Prime subscriptions…i.e. join Prime and get this cool little box for only $49 extra. (in the giveaway the razor/sell the blades model).